No, a large chunk of biology was figuring out species evolve and were not created as they are right now. Or that every living thing is made of cells that share

No, a large chunk of biology was figuring out species evolve and were not created as they are right now. Or that every living thing is made of cells that share the same basic chemistry and structure, not special kinds of tissue. The busywork in between might have looked like science and occupied a lot of time and space. Relativity and quantum mechanics generated a lot of falsifiable claims that were eventually tested. Yet we have been building larger and larger colliders to "collect and publish data" and the best outcome so far has been a job program for engineers (useful and good) and the Web (useful and good). But we shouldn't confuse collecting data and engineering with advancing science.